AMD uncloaks Fusion dev kit

AMD has released the software development kit for its Fusion line of CPU/GPU mashups, an update and renaming of its ATI Stream SDK.

"When developers harness the power of parallel processing within our APU designs, they can fundamentally change the PC experience to help not only make it faster, but also to create new possibilities in software," said AMD's director of client product and software marketing John Taylor when announcing the company's new acronym stream, the AMD APP SDK v2.3 for APUs.

In English, that's the Advanced Micro Devices accelerated parallel processing software development kit version 2.3 for accelerated processing units – those last three words being AMD-speak for their Fusion line.

In addition to the AMD Fusion processors unveiled at this year's Consumer Electronic Show, version 2.3 provides support for the company's new AMD Radeon HD 6900 GPUs, plus support for OpenCL 1.1, including OpenCL math libraries. AMD also claims that new SDK improves runtime performance.

"In 2008, AMD was the first processor design company to embrace OpenCL, and as such, we have made significant progress in parallel processing innovation," Taylor said. "Our vision has been realized with the widespread availability of the first PCs powered by AMD Fusion APUs."

AMD will host its first Fusion Developer Summit on June 13-16 in Bellevue, Washington. If you are a "heterogeneous computing pioneer", you have until February 14 to submit a proposal for sharing your ideas and discoveries at that gathering – presentations, technical papers, and reports are sought. ®